All the Stars Fell
by SapSorrow
Summary: "Loki bites his lip and lowers his eyes –"I'd like to kill the person who did that to you" he murmurs. Thor frowns and replies gently – "Loki you did that to me." Loki raises his head; "I know" he says". Thorki, beginning during "Dark World", graphic content, much hurt/ comfort.
1. Chapter 1

**Trigger warnings for references to past abuse, mental, physical and sexual and for extreme flashback reaction. **

**All the Stars Fell**

**1. **

"Trust my rage" he says and Thor looks back steadily but not for too long before he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he will. He does not want to look too long, does not want to fall back into that head rush of less than a minute ago, that the pounding closeness of his brother's body brought upon him. Does not even want to think those words; repeating the litany of denial over and over in his head in the hope that it will keep his heart from breaking further –

_You are not my brother, I will not say it, I will not even think it, will not look at you too closely, my brother is dead –_

But he _does _think it, and he does look, and he can see the flame in Loki's eyes and the needy grasping for approval that he has not seen there since they were so much younger and he can feel his brother's pain and – there it goes again – and he aches beyond what he thinks he can bear for not wanting to care anymore. For there is so much that he wants to say, so much that he wishes he could do and it could all so easily just pour out of him in a flood –

_How this broken heart lay close to death all the time you were down there, away from me, while you haunted my mind like a ghost. How I cannot stop remembering what we used to be, how the ghost of you comes to me at night. How it tears at the heart you have broken that I still love you and yes I hate myself for doing to you what I am doing when your eyes frantically rake me for approval, for remembrance – for something that I could give you but that I cannot without tearing myself apart again, forgive me, please forgive me, my dearest brother and my only love –_

He bottles it back and swallows it down hard, looking firmly at a spot over Loki's shoulders when he replies –

"I think I have a plan."

_Why? _Loki thinks – _why won't he look at me? Why now when I will say it will he not call me brother? Will he only ever do it when I didn't want it? When did he stop caring – and when did I start caring if he did or not? I don't care. I never did. He can go to Hel for all I care - What did I do wrong?_

He fights the urge to laugh hysterically at his own last question and raising an eyebrow says –

"Dear gods, and I thought this could get no worse."

That gentle, teasing, slightly sardonic tone is so familiar, so redolent of the brother he likes to think that he likes to think lost – it tugs at Thor's heart and makes him very nearly but not quite smile.

"Are you with me or are you not?" he growls. Loki twists his mouth around the sigh that wants to escape him and looks down –

"I am. You know I am."

"I no longer know anything of you" Thor replies bitterly, and too quickly. Loki looks at him sharply with those bright eyes that miss nothing and that look that says he knows too well that bitterness covers the sharpest of aching in the heart.

"I am" he says, he wants to say more, wants to say perhaps "I always have been" – because he wants it to be true but knows it to be a lie, a lie even Thor would not fall for, not for a second.

"Jane cannot know." Thor says – ""It won't work if she knows."

"Suddenly I'm liking this plan better."

Thor takes a step towards where Loki is sat, wondering how it is possible for every little thing, every moment between them to be so complex, so fraught with layer and difficulty, wanting immeasurably for everything to be simple again.

"For the love of the gods –" Loki groans, "Sit down won't you? I won't bite and even if I had a weapon it would hardly be in my interest to make stabbing you the first thing I do with it."

"Actually" Thor sits across from Loki, wary, though not if he is honest – wary of Loki – "That might be the plan". The front of the ship is narrow, and even sat across from him their knees are touching. Thor wishes he was not so painfully aware of the contact, just as he has been aware of every contact so far –

_When I pushed you into the pillar and my hand wrapped around your neck, the feel of your skin so familiar, the memory that was more than a memory of never wanting to stop touching you, how my hand slid into the familiar place at the back of your neck and your hair was like silk in my fingers, how my treacherous fingers went to your cheek in spite of my intent – how I wanted you – no –_

_When I grabbed you just ten minutes ago and I felt your body so close to mine I could hear the beat of your heart, that heart that used to beat with mine so I could not tell where I stopped and you began, how I still cannot tell in spite of everything and it kills me – how I felt your breath on my face and in your breath and in your heartbeat there were no lies, no tricks and there never were – yes and how I wanted you –_

"Are you _quite _alright?" Thor snaps back to the moment to find Loki peering into his face like an interested cat, indeed like the little brother he always thought he knew. Suddenly, unbearably, he wants to cry. He takes Loki by the shoulders, putting him firmly at arms' length but then finds that he cannot let go, not again, he feels like all he has ever done is let go, all he has ever offered his brother is a series of failure and he hates that a part of him is blaming Loki for everything that he knows in truth is his fault.

"In case you had not noticed –" he says through gritted teeth – "Very little here is _alright. _Things have not been alright for some time – No – no Loki – don't – please broth –" he cuts himself off only just in time, not really in time, but he can see Loki's chin tremble and his eyes go that very bright green that means he too is close to crying. It is the same face he has seen on his brother since they were tiny, the one that means he is genuinely, not – faking- sad. It cuts him deep that in spite of all his fierce attempts to push him away, to not care, he is as susceptible to seeing Loki sad as he ever was when things were simpler.

It starts by with just a gentle touch, gentle being something he had sworn to himself to avoid – two fingers against Loki's chin as though to try and stop the trembling, but he does not want to see that lip quiver either – he does not mean to start kissing him, more than anything he does not, but the pull is just too strong, he has no more choice in it than he chooses to breath. Loki's eyes fall closed and lets himself be pulled close and at first his head simply hums with the pleasant sensation of coming home. It is Thor now, who is the needy one, once he has broken, fallen upon his brother as he was used from before, he does not see the point in holding back, kissing Loki deeply, desperately, wanting to feed the hunger that has burnt in him since first believing him dead. He lets himself remember – they both let themselves remember how these kisses would become more frantic, burning into a fire of lust that could only be put out in hours of diving each into the body of the other. The kiss, the closeness – they wash through Loki like a healing fountain, soothing out a little of the burning in his soul, for several beautiful moments until Thor pulls him closer and he reaches to hold back, forgetting his chains and something switches, clicks into black in his head; perhaps it is the tenderness, the memory and the presence of Thor's affection, perhaps the bonds that do it but he hears the voice in his head that he has fought all these months to crush down –

_"Did you really think you were loved? What are you assume anything could care for you? You are nothing; petty, worthless thing. They didn't love you, they just wanted to use you – they all just want to use you – forget them and be used by me –" _

_The words, the knowledge being pressed into his mind with fingers that wriggled into his brain, tearing out the truth and replacing it with darkness, the pain of those fingers rummaging, dirty in the mind as The Other systematically destroyed his body, putting him back together only to fulfil its own needs, making sure always to leave him in no doubt of his worthlessness and that this worthlessness was apparent to everyone else that had offered the lie of love –_

"No!" he screams, breaking away and leaping up so savagely he staggers back so hard Thor has to catch him, clasping him closely in a wildly ill-timed attempt to calm him down. Loki struggles, writhing like a drowning animal, frantic and trapped – "I will not!" he yells – "I will not be used again! Not by you, not by anyone! Damn you – let me go –"

"I will not!" Thor retorts, stubborn and intent now he has started down this road – "I have let you go too many times"

"I am _nothing _to you! _Nothing _do you hear? You never loved me – nobody could –"

But Thor sees the glazed look in Loki's eye and hears this suddenly for what it is, what it always was on earth when he sneered at sentiment with tears in his eyes, hears a memory of his own voice come back to haunt him –

_Who showed you this power? Who controls the would be King? _

He should have pressed it; he should have known better than to take Loki for what he said, should have known that the hollows under the eyes and the stagger in his walk were not affectations, symptoms of madness or evil, but proof that someone had broken his brother beyond repair.

Thor does not believe in defeat. Nor will he accept that anything, least of all Loki who he wants to fix so much, is truly beyond repair and when he speaks next he can hear the echoes of the question he asked then – can hear fate offer it up again as a second chance, a chance to get it right this time –

"Who told you this Loki?" he asks quietly – "Who made you think this that I might kill them for what they have done?"

Loki stares back at him, eyes wild, though he no longer struggles, torn between what he has been forced to think and what he wants to think, not daring to imagine that the latter could actually be the truth but not seeing anything in his brother's eyes to confirm that he does not care. He does not answer straight away and for a few breathless moments the ship sails silently through the dark sky where the stars shiver with cold and shiver for anticipating an answer.

_x_

**See, I've read a lot of fics now, some of them extremely good, where Thor and Loki have sex on the ship, this is sort of my answer to why, sadly, I don't think that happened….however this is possibly going to turn into a beast of a long story and anyway will certainly contain sex in later chapters. Enjoy. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Still much trauma, hang in there folks!**

**2.**

Thor releases his hold on Loki just enough to be able to try and stare him down, keeping a firm hold on his shoulders, both so Loki cannot break away from the question and because he can see that in his sudden panic he is not standing too steadily. He cannot outstare Loki and he knows it and yet, to his immense surprise it is Loki who looks down first, he can see the effort in his every gesture that it has taken to offer Thor this standing down, like an animal rolling over to expose its soft underside. He could make it no clearer if he tried that this is what he has been doing ever since Thor came down to the prison to see him. Thor feels dreadful, beyond measure, to realise what it means for Loki to offer him this, having tried not to understand to save himself from continuing to care. Much good, he thinks, these attempts have done. He cannot bear it, that Loki is so desperate for approval that he would do this, Thor is no psychiatrist but he hears, as it were, a montage of Loki calling everyone desperate other than himself right down to that last –

_You must be truly desperate to come to me for help._

Thor curses his own stupidity, that he never noticed how Loki was trying to drop him hints all along, trying _desperately _to let him know without saying it - that he did none of this wilfully;

_That it never was the rest of us you thought so desperate, it was you all along –_

He does not say this aloud, does not want to damage to chance he may be verging on of Loki actually telling him something true.

"You can't" Loki says, finally, still not looking Thor in the eye, though it is this that convinces him that Loki is speaking the truth – when he can so often look one direct in the eye and tell the sweetest of lies. He wishes he could see Loki's face, he keeps his expression carefully hidden but Thor sees his shoulders heave in a sigh that seems to hurt him and Loki kicks the front of the boat in frustration before looking up, hiding behind the surge of anger that has come into his eyes – "You can't kill anyone for me brother, you cannot protect me, cannot save you little brother from the people being mean to him. Not this time. Your friends saw to that and I cannot say I am sorry. But you cannot take anyone to task for my downfall. As I see it you have had no problems before now in pinning that on me alone."

"You did not tell me!"

"You barely asked!"

"Would you have told me the truth if I had?"

"Of course not!"

"Well then –" Thor breaks off, not knowing what more to say, he shakes his head –

"You admit then that you did not act of your own accord?"

Loki looks away and stubbornly refuses to answer, lips sealed so tight they might have been sewn together. He twists out from beneath Thor's hands, Thor letting him, and sits back down at the front of the boat, turning his face to rest his forehead against the cool of the prow, soothing to that still burning brain. Thor looks at him silently for a moment, realising how stupid a question it was to ask; Loki would never admit it outright, but he had done so indirectly for all intents and purposes.

"This changes things. You need not be punished for something that is not your fault – when we get home – if we survive this - I will go to father – I will –"

"You will do nothing of the sort!" Loki snaps viciously, whipping his head around to glare – "Do you think for one moment I would want _him _to know that I –" He stops himself, rethinking and covering it up poorly, muttering more to convince himself than Thor – "Anyway I am _not _so easily controlled. You credit me with too little blame."

_Do I? _Thor thinks, doubting it.

"I do not get the impression it was so easy" Thor murmurs as gently as he can. Loki glares at him through brimming, stinging eyes, hating him for making him remember everything he has been trying all these months in prison to forget –

_-never knew I could cry so long, never knew I was so weak, so easily broken, a small ball of a creature curled up to avoid the worst of the blows, the lashes stinging across already broken skin, screaming with the pain so long when the screaming ran down it could still be heard in the brain. So loud, so loud already in the head, burning and roaring with red static pain, ongoing pain, hour after hour, day after day until the concept of pain seems remote and strange for forgetting that there was ever any other state of being. However long it took I broke and broke too easily, pathetic, crawling thing to break like a bug crushed not quite to death beneath the boot. Disgusting thing, to let this happen. Hoping against hope that It cannot reach into the mind and see the wish sobbing in there for nothing more than to go back home. But it can, of course it can, fingers wriggling in again, invading the mind, filthy, so filthy this foul penetration, plucking at that sobbing childish wish and pulling at it, using it to mock, to scorn, to torment –_

_"You have no home and nobody to return to, this is all you are and all you ever were –"_

_There was a memory, even in that place that was no place, the memory of summers of silver and gold and someone loving me, of fires warming the heart of winter and love in defiance of reason. There were these memories that I threw up as a barrier to Its words, to Its cruel insistence of my worthlessness, there was the memory of someone looking at me like they loved me. There were memories and they were the strongest weapons that I had. And oh how It tore them to shreds,_

_"You think this is proof you were someone once? This is nothing, this is lies, there was no love here, there was only coercion and rape from one who sought to use your as his toy, as I do, as we all do –" _

_How it went to work on all those memories, tearing at their fabric and injecting them with poison until I tasted that poison in my every pore until I believed in the injection and not the evidence, until Love became a filthy, venomous word to be trampled down with me – until I had nothing to hold onto but the consistent pain of now –_

"You know _nothing _Thor" Loki spits with bitter sadness – "Do not speak of what you cannot imagine or begin to understand."

"Help me to understand then! For the love of the gods Loki, tell me something true!"

"What you want me to _share? _To – to – begin some kind of _healing process_? Do you think _talking _will make this go away? No, no I have said enough already – too much – I –no, damn it, no, stop pretending that you care -"

Loki bites his lip, not wanting to say more, Thor too opens and closes his mouth several times, on the border of saying _but I do care _and ultimately he cannot, even though it would be only too painfully true. He sits back down, wanting to reach out again but not knowing how, he cannot make himself speak, always the possessor of the more leaden tongue, and he cannot reach out to touch Loki again for fear of provoking another terrified reaction. His blood boils and his heart aches for fear of what has been done to his brother, remembering the time he would have quickly beaten to the ground anyone who caused him so much as the faintest hurt. He could drown his own heart in the tears that he swallows for remembering a time when Loki was still perfect in his eyes, unharmed and undamaged. He looks across at Jane, asleep at the far end of the ship and wishes he could care only about the simple lives of these mortals that concern him and not take back in hand the one life he cares about beyond all measure. He sighs, knowing too well that when it came down to it he would choose Loki every time.

Loki watches Thor, eyes narrowing as he sees him look at Jane and sigh, misreading it completely, and he closes the door to his heart again silently, hardening himself once more. It has become almost easy.

"If you have a plan it may be a good idea to share it _before _we reach Malekith and not after" he says, voice neutral.

Thor looks at him a moment, reading nothing once more in that blank mask of a face, knowing that look that means Loki has closed himself off again and unsure whether he has made any real ground or not. Thor nods and outlines the plan. By the time he has not quite finished Loki is shaking with genuine not quite silent laughter.

"I do not see what is so funny" Thor frowns.

Loki meets his eye, merriment dancing across his face –

"_Truly _brother – you would trust me with a plan such as this? Whatever do you think will stop me from doing all of it for real?"

"Only my own idiocy" Thor sighs – "And my –" _love, hope, faith? _Perhaps one, perhaps all three are pushing him to trust that just this once Loki might redeem himself.

Loki looks sourly over at Jane –

"Is she _that _worth saving?"

Thor looks back at him steadily for a long moment before saying, very quietly and without really meaning to at all –

"It is not her I wish to save."

Loki stares at him a moment uncomprehendingly, then he sees the intensity and the unarguable love in Thor's returned gaze and the moment he gets it he starts to sob, silently and uncontrollably, really truly crying for the first time since before he fell. Thor stares back dismayed, not quite knowing what to do for a moment, but only a moment before he kicks himself for being in any doubt. He reaches a tentative hand to Loki's face and when Loki does not shy away curls that hand around his neck, settling into that old familiar spot that feels like it was made for his hand to sit there. He remembers that old, never really forgotten feeling of wholeness, of how well they have always fitted together and leans forward until their foreheads are pressed together and he can hear Loki's hitching breath and fluttering heart. There is a moment when suddenly everything is deeply simple and all he knows is that his little brother is upset and hurt and that it is his job to take care of him. It is all he has ever known so certainly.

"Come here –" he sighs in a soft growl, and Loki is pliant and placid as a dormant cat as Thor pulls him closer on the bench, wrapping his arms around him from behind and settling his chin on Loki's head while Loki cries softly, torn between struggling not to and the curious joy and release in finally doing so. He has always chosen to cry best like this, supported but from such an angle that Thor cannot see his face, all open and raw and streaked with tears and Thor murmuring a strange but somehow pleasant litany of comfort such as he has been offering for centuries, murmuring his name like an incantation –

"Loki, my Loki, it's okay, it's all going to be alright, my beautiful Loki, it's okay, it's okay –"

Somehow when Thor says his name like that it reminds him who he is, that he even is someone with a name is reassuring after everything. Somehow too, it rings almost true, maybe it really _is _going to be alright because he remembers now that however many times he was told that love was a lie, however brutally It ripped at his fondest memories of sweetness, however close he came to believing everything It said there was always a tiny hidden seed at the core of him that held out against hope and would _not _truly believe it. He supposes he would not have felt half so conflicted in New York if he had. And he thinks that maybe, just maybe it means he is not as weak as he feared, that he is not _nothing _after all. For though the memories were ripped at and put back in his head damaged they still shimmer in they rags, silver and gold, crimson and green, sapphire and starlight, shadow and sun.

That seed growing into hope that when they get through this it will be as okay as Thor says it will and that he will call him _brother _again before long.

"Am I really?" he murmurs, half curious, half just to speak as Thor kisses him ever so gently on the top of the head.

"Really what?"

Loki smiles to himself at the sweet, silly idea of it –

"Beautiful" he says.

_x_

**Thank you faithful readers for putting up with all the sad, there's at ****_least _****two more chapters of sad to go before it can start getting any better but watch this space!**

**Also I have to mention that I run the risk of plagiarism a little as some parts of this story share some very common ground with my partner, Zedrobber's very excellent story "Stripes" which I urge you all heartily to read. :-) **


	3. Chapter 3

**3.**

The wind is grey and cold as the ship glides towards Svartalfheim and Thor instinctively holds his brother a little closer to keep him warm, even though he knows really how little Loki feels the cold. He remembers how he used to fear it all the same and would sneak into his room at night when he was very small, burrowing himself into Thor's covers and pressing his cold nose into his neck for warmth. He would never ask to be taken care of and Thor would never embarrass him by acknowledging that he was doing so. In truth he took more comfort in feeling that nuzzling, tentative closeness than as a child he could have ever admitted.

In the midst of such a maelstrom of feeling, of the wrenching at the heart from so much having changed, this at least seemed very familiar.

"Of course you are" Thor smiled and Loki could hear in his voice the wonderment that he could even asked – "But you know that. Surely I have told you enough times now?"

Loki frowns, he _does not _know it and does not even want to try and accept it right now –

"Perhaps you did –" he admits, grudgingly – "But it was in another life and a life lived so long ago – I struggle to remember." He says it dismissively, but Thor knows him better than that, he knows that dismissive in Loki is wistfulness in others.

"I can help you remember" he offers – "We can have those days back again yet". He feels Loki nearly laugh him down scornfully and Loki, though he cannot bring himself to agree with so foolishly hopeful a sentiment finds that he cannot quite shoot it down either. Instead he wriggles as though uncomfortably in Thor's arms – though both of them know he is far from uncomfortable –

"You don't have to try and keep me warm you know" he mock – grumbles – "As you will recall I don't feel the cold. I never did."

"I recall you sitting for hours on a plain in Jotunheim just to prove it to me. You could have just told me."

"It was not _you _I was proving it to" Loki laughs mirthlessly – "It makes so much more sense now."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm a _frost giant, _remember?" His lips curl around the words with infinite scorn and self loathing and they still leave a bad taste in his mouth. Thor dodges the bait, uncertain whether dismissing this by pointing out how little it matters to him would anger Loki or comfort him. Neither is he willing to put importance on the subject, and replies only –

"And if _you _would remember I told you then it would not matter to me even if you were –"

"Yes –" Loki says, bitterly – "_Even_ - I remember."

"It is still true." Thor rests his head to one side on top of Loki's, breathing in the smell and feel of him as something too long missed, and Loki too sighs and leans back against Thor, well aware that this chance for closeness will be gone before long and before either of them are ready.

"We have had too little time to talk of all things" Thor murmurs, regretfully and Loki frowns, opening his mouth to say something snide – _we would have had more had you ever come to see me. _But the time, even now, is too short and he does not want to begin a course of argument that will all the quicker move them from this position.

"Well perhaps we will" he says, not believing a word of it – "Perhaps when this is over there will be time for you to psycho-analyse me, work me out with your Midguardian interventions. See what you can do for this poor lost soul –"

"Loki hush –" Thor breathes out, hearing Loki descend further into meaningless sarcasm with every word – "We will fix this I swear. When we return home, we will fix this; I will be there if you want me – and if you don't - I will still be there, if you need me – you should know that by now."

"And what of _her –_" Loki tilts his head towards Jane with a faint sneer – "Where does she fit in?"

"She will fit in around you" Thor replies simply – "I will move the world to fit around you if I must. You are the only one –" but there is still a limit to how much Thor can give – "Nobody else is you" he rectifies, lamely. Loki arches an eyebrow and in return offers nothing but –

"What a relief for you all."

As the ship draws close to their destination it is Loki who sees Jane move and whimper in her sleep first, Thor is not looking at her at all. Loki yawns, in exaggerated preparation to become infinitely less comfortable than he is, and rubs his forehead roughly with clenched chained fists, as though to rub away at least some of the confusion therein. He pulls himself away from Thor heavily, turning round to look up at his brother's face, frowning back at the expression of puzzlement on Thor's face as Thor tries to work even a fraction of Loki out.

"Thank you" Loki says, quietly, not entirely certain what he is thanking Thor for, but kissing him very quickly beneath the eye and darting back to his spot on the other side of the ship's prow before Thor can question him about it. Only then does Thor notice Jane stirring and stands up quickly –

"Remember –" Thor says, quietly and urgently – "Protect Jane and protect yourself, I would rather die than see anything happen to either of you."

Loki rolls his eyes and is thankfully excused from making a reply by Jane's timely waking up and looking over at them.

_x_

Thor watches Loki fight with satisfaction and pride. He hears the lies he offers up to Malekith and it strikes him that Loki has never sounded less believable. His heart surges with hope for what this could mean, as he has not dared to hope yet. Loki fights closely and brutally and Thor can see the savage joy on his face at getting this opportunity to unleash and to do it against their mutual enemy. At the same time he moves like one in a dance and he crouches over Jane to protect her with entirely honest intent, purely because she is Thor's and he has asked Loki to do this. _I had forgotten the loyalty in you – I had thought it dead, forgive me brother – _he thinks and when Loki is endangered he flies to drag him out of harm's way without a second thought simply _no, I will not have you taken from me again! _

Unfortunately Loki's instincts are as sudden and as powerful as his own and no sooner is Thor fearing for his own life as he battles the Kursed but Loki is there and has saved him, standing before him for a split second with a look of such passionate triumph that Thor thinks – _Yes! My brother is back _and as he turns to smile at him with all of that golden warmth shining resplendent, put back into his heart, the Kursed turns too, skewering Loki on his own sword.

It may as well have been Thor's own heart on the end of the blade, certainly it stops beating, his eyes falling back into his head and the world spinning heavy and sickening. He catches Loki as he falls – _I said I would, I said I would always catch you when you fall – _roaring a torrent of denial to the gathering storm clouds. He wishes he could say the right thing, find the one perfect thing to say, then Loki says it to him –

"I didn't do it for _him" _and the heart he so carefully tried to guard breaks again and he wants to scream and shake him and call him an idiot – _fool for thinking this could have helped me, fool to think I could live without you – again. You already died once and it killed me would you save me just to kill me again? Loki, brother, no –_

But he cannot, by the time his brain has caught up with him it is already too late, he cannot even call him brother one last time so that Loki might know it. His head is numb and heavy as he rocks the little body in his arms and the clouds scream and crash their grief for it will not come out of him any other way

_I'll stay – _he thinks frantically – _stay until you awake my brother or let this world take me too. It has already hollowed me out. Sleep my brother, sleep and rest, you must be so tired, yes my brother, rest – _his tears fall onto Loki's face and he brushes them away tenderly that his brother might not feel the damp discomfort and he holds him tenderly, rocking him gently like the fractious child he had so often soothed to sleep that way. There is no thought in his mind of ever leaving until he hears a soft _thump _behind him and a weak voice calling his name and he turns reluctantly to see that Jane has fallen down from the storm, too strong for her to stand in –

"Thor –" she whimpers softly, struggling for the wind and the sand in her eyes – "Thor I'm so sorry but we have to go –"

Perhaps it is the fact that she is too weak even to stand unaided, or that she will die if they stay out in this. Perhaps it is the fact that she thought to say sorry before she even pointed out that they were not safe here – but her words get through to him the fact that he needs to get her to safety. He looks slowly from her back to Loki and back to her, thoughts coming to him only very slowly –

"I can't – I can't leave him –" he shakes with silent sobbing at the thought – "He could wake up – he could – come back –" he has little faith in his own protestations but his heart pleads to Loki's wherever it may be _come back, come back, come back – _he looks at her helplessly, pleadingly – "Jane, what do I do?"

She shakes her head back just as helpless, she does not know, there are tears in her eyes that are not the sand or the storm stinging her –

"I'm sorry Thor, I'm so sorry –" He can see her inwardly cursing her own helplessness and turns back to Loki. He feels cold and is pale as death; it is hard to imagine any coming back from this. Thor takes off his cloak and wraps Loki up in it gently, very gently, not wanting to hurt him or cause him any more distress. He wants to say something, something right for once, to mark the moment but all can offer up is a litany of frantic thoughts – _there was still so much to say, forgive me, forgive me Loki, come back to me, goodbye – _he wraps the cloak around him completely, like a shroud – _take my cloak for warmth little brother, take it to fight off the dark, don't be afraid my brother, I will not go far and I will come straight back for you –_

There is just one wrong left that he can right, before he covers Loki's face he kisses him softly on the forehead and whispers against the cold skin –

"Forgive me brother."

He cannot remember the last time he said it.

_x_

For Loki it feels like waking and at first he wonders what has happened and where he is. It's dark and he feels trapped and cannot see. He fights against the material enveloping him until he looks out on the dark world and remembers. He remembers what he did and is frightened at the purity of his own intentions, then he realises that he alone and becomes angry. Shortly on the heels of anger comes warmth and the realisation that this is Thor's cloak he has been unwrapping from himself and a memory that is more like the memory of a dream of Thor kissing him on the forehead and calling him brother. Though that may not have happened, he realises he may only have been convincing himself that happened because he would have liked it to.

Quick on the heels of the flurry of emotions comes the realisation that he is alive and free and has his own ways back into Asgard, it is on this new tide of ideas and planning that he shrouds himself in illusion and begins to smile.

Before he leaves he picks the cloak up from the ground, transforming it into his outfit.

_Indeed _he thinks, pre-emptively and in answer to something he did not quite hear – _forgive me brother._

_x_

**Sorry about the tragedy here people, needless to say it can only get better….eventually. Of course the next chapter will be post Dark World. :-)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Just gonna apologise in advance for this chapter cause Loki isn't in it until the very end and though I don't ship them at all there is a hint of Thor/ Jane but….not really. If you really hate that I don't mind if you skip this chapter but I kind of needed to write it for …..plot. Shockingly. Not a thing I usually do! **

**4.**

Jane watches the thunder clouds gather out the window and sighs to herself for what feels like the thousandth time. It has been impossible to continue any of her work in these past few weeks beneath the persistent clouds that seem to follow her now wherever she goes, and she wishes she did not know the cause of it. Wishes it was not starting to bother her.

But there is so much else to bother her. She glances across the room to where Thor is inhabiting the sofa, a book in his hands that he only half pays attention to. He seems far away, he has done ever since they came back. After the initial joy of his first appearance she began to realise more and more that he was not with her after all. Oh yes he was as sweet to her and courteous as ever, but he wasn't _there _and it never went further than that first kiss, never went further than _sweet _and _courteous _and certainly Jane knew _she _was not the one who was holding back. That they slept in different rooms and behaved more like friends than anything else was certainly through no choice of hers.

She was far from stupid and, having come close to guessing the cause she had tried to talk to him about it. But all of her inquiries as to what was wrong and if she could help had encountered only negatives or grunts and the one time she had dared to ask if it _was anything to do with Loki_ all she had got was a grunt and a scowl. After that, if anything, it seemed as though he had closed off from her more than ever. Which had answered her question really; it _was _– and she could understand that, to a point, but still didn't see why it should so affect _their _relationship to this degree.

She wished she was not becoming slightly bitter about it but the truth was that she was. In retrospect she remembered all the events that had followed their immediate return from the Dark World and the complete disregard for his own life with which Thor had plunged himself into battle. At the time she had thought only that such was his way but he had never before seemed so careless of his own life, like it would be nothing to give it up. She suspected that he would still relish the chance to die _to save her _he would say and possibly half believe it, but it would not be for her. She was beginning to suspect that it would never be her.

Which did not mean that she did not love having him around, not in the slightest; they got on and after all he was becoming immensely useful even talented in the kitchen – she just wished that if friends was all they were to be that he would admit to the fact. She put down her coffee and wandered over to kneel down on the floor beside the sofa and rest her head on one large and comforting arm.

"Hi" she said. Thor frowned;

"Hi."

"What are you reading?"

Thor flipped the book and waved the cover at her, she smiled; it was one of the books of Norse mythology that Darcy had picked up back when this was all new ground to them.

"So how does it translate? I mean – did these things actually _happen?" _

"Some of them –" Thor replies slowly – "Some of them exactly as your stories report and some of them ….differently. Some of them not at all. It is strange, the way you have viewed us."

"So they're not all like the stories report? The people I mean? Are they better or worse in real life?"

Thor thinks about this seriously for a moment. In truth, if he was being honest to himself he has been reading more and more because it was something Loki always did. He has lost sight of himself in the last few weeks and, uncertain as to who or what he is anymore has more and more started to behave like the only person who made him feel complete. He has started seeking to be Loki in an attempt to find himself.

"Better –" he shakes his head – "And worse. In truth I no longer find myself in a position where I might judge."

"So say – _this _one –" Jane points to the page he had rested on – "Did it really happen? This "Lay of Thrym"?"

Thor looks down as if he has to remind himself what he was reading and chuckles ever so faintly –

"I'm sorry to say this did. I am sorrier still that it is one of our stories that made it into your world's mythology –" he turns a page absently and immediately wishes he hadn't, Jane too looks down and sighs. The illustration is Loki, different hair, eyes, build – but quite unmistakably Loki. Thor's lips twitch and for a brief moment his fingers stroke the page;

"Thor –" Jane begins gently, but he looks at her, with that far away stare and the clouds in his eyes and shakes his head at her so pleadingly that she stops. Outside the thunder crashes in the tense and trembling sky.

Little changes day after day, until one afternoon Jane gets up to answer a knock on the door in a more than usually foul mood –

"We _have _a doorbell –" she begins, sees Sif standing there, looking utterly confused by this statement and sags a little "Oh it's you. you must be here to see Thor" She stands aside to let Sif in, unimpressed by the manner in which she barges past, barely looking at her – "Y'know –" she adds – "I was reading about you and I was expecting someone a little –" she smiles terribly sweetly – "Blonder." Sif dashes her with the look of a thousand deaths, centuries later the wrong done to her hair still manages to rankle. To Jane's relief Thor does not particularly pleased to see her either; but as he is incapable of rudeness to a lady he acknowledges her presence with all the appearance of pleasure he can muster.

"Thor we need you back in Asgard" Sif says, not one to hedge around the subject. Thor sits back down, dejectedly;

"No" he says – "You don't. I have already explained myself to the All-father and will return in time. Until then I prefer to remain here."

"Thor you cannot –"

"Hey Lady –" cuts in Jane – "You don't get to tell him what he can and cannot do –"

"Jane please –" Thor groans, and then pauses, nodding at Sif and gesturing Jane – "What she said" he mumbles. Sif's eyes flash angrily and unwilling to admit of any jealousy towards Jane she lashes out only at Thor –

"It is not right that the only son of the All-father malinger so long on Midgard mourning the loss of a traitor to the realm!"

"What?" Thor is on his feet instantly, angrier – indeed more anything – than Jane has seen him since he came back, reaching alarmingly for Mjolnir for the first time since she can remember – "Sif you and I have ever fought side by side but I swear I will strike you down if you _dare –"_

"Woah woah woah!" Interjects Jane, quickly inserting herself between the two of them, as Sif's hand flies instinctively to her sword – "This is _my _house and there will be no _fighting _and no _striking down _of any kind without my permission, do you hear me? Jesus, and we used to worship you guys as _gods_? C'mon, work it out!"

Thor grumbles and puts down the hammer, Sif relaxes the hand on the sword.

"Thor –" she tries again, attempting to make it more patient this time – "There is something very wrong with –" she frowns, not sure _exactly _what it is that is wrong – "We are not sure you _have _spoken with the All-father – he is – different, we do not know –"

"Well but – that is ridiculous –" Thor huffs – "I spoke with him myself. Who else could it have possibly –" he trails off, damning his slowness and Jane gets there at the same time. The three of them stand for a moment all thinking the same thing, only Thor saying it and so quietly that only Jane can hear –

"Loki."

Jane hangs her head and feels something fall out of the base of her heart – _Loki. _She should have known better. Should have known that the weight between them all this time was that of the name he had not uttered, not once. Sif looks between them, feeling slightly guilty and wishing to remedy her previous complete lack of tact she asks Jane most politely if she would like her to leave the room while they discuss it. Jane nods and soon as she has gone – awkwardly – into the kitchen and closed the door she turns to Thor. He does not look at her for as long as he can help it but under the strength of her remorseless gaze finally looks up –

"No" he shakes his head – "I am not going –"

"Yes" Jane sighs deeply – "Yes Thor you are. If there's a chance – _any _chance it's him you have to – you know you do."

"Why?" he argues, more debating it with himself than with her, she can tell, _and get my heart broken all over again _he thinks – at least he thinks he thought it – suddenly looking at Jane in horror –

"Yeah" she nods, grimacing – "You said that out loud."

"Forgive me Jane, I –"

"No don't" she says – "I should have known. You could never break your heart over me could you?" She says it more factually, less sadly than she feels it. Thor just shakes his head at her in lost agreement.

"You should have _told _me –" this at least she _can _be angry at him about – "You should have told me what he was to you instead of making me think – Thor I don't mind if we're just friends but I wish you had told me so in the first place."

"How could I?" he says sadly, rhetorically – "When I barely knew myself? I _still _do not know – I do not know what will come of this or if it's even – and if it is if I will not simply kill him for doing this _again _–"

"You're confused" she nods – "I hear it – but I don't want to hear it right now. I'll still be here and I'll still be your friend but please – go." She forces herself to smile as she clasps Thor's hand and he squeezes it sorrowfully as she kisses him on the cheek.

In the silence Sif tentatively reappears. Thor looks once more at Jane and then nods at Sif –

"I will come" he says.

_x_

The time it takes for them to reappear in Asgard is time enough for Thor to get angry in, fully settling himself into that feeling of anger like a comfortable cloak he is pulling around himself. He feels almost relieved by having –a at least for the moment – decided on this one emotion. On meeting the others they all re-iterate what Sif has said and when Heimdall mentions that he has in fact _seen _Loki in Asgard in his more unguarded moments Thor becomes convinced. He turns down all of their offers to accompany him to the throne room ad storms in alone. He roars at the guards to leave and confused and alarmed they scatter before him as he storms down to hall to where the apparent All-father slouches in his throne. Thor inwardly shakes his head at himself; that stance is _nothing _like Odin's, how could he have been so taken in?

_Odin _raises his eyebrows at Thor's sudden and violent entrance and opens his mouth lazily, almost like a yawn, to comment –

"_Loki enough –" _Thor hisses – _"No more illusions"._

The apparition smirks and is still smirking when he transforms, shimmering, back into Loki, a resplendent Loki, glorious and beautiful on the throne, even to Thor's furious eyes –

"Now you see me brother" he smiles – "I wondered how long it would take you."

_x_

**Ha ha, yeah I left it there! I'm so sorry for the lack of Loki here but I ****_promise _****to make it all up to you in the next chapter. I'm sorry to anyone who didn't like the amount of Jane in here but well, I don't hate Jane, she is just a small mortal and so does not need to die for my ship, also I think it's kind of cheap to just treat Jane badly in fanfic due to wanting her out of the way. I really think Thor thinks of her more as a friend than Romantically, ****_that _****he reserves for Loki. I also think that they would break up amicably hence writing it as such. **

**Next chapter will see sexy fighting and moves towards reconciliation. In other words: Normal Service Will Be Resumed. :-) **


	5. Chapter 5

**5.**

Thor stares at Loki, hating him more than he has ever hated him before but at the same time unable either to tear his eyes away or ignore the fact that he can hear his own heart beating violently in his chest, it has seemed as though that heart has lain silent, close to death all this time. A flood of riotously differing emotions and ideas flood through him, rending it impossible to form a simple answer. He is _furious _that Loki has let him believe he was dead all this time, _furious _that he has treated such a thing as a game. He wonders if it was all an act, every bit of it, if he had even meant to save him or staged it all to finally get himself here. He wonders where his father is and is fully ready to believe Loki has killed him and a part of him is just as ready to kill him for doing so. Another part of him is just as aware that he could not end Loki's life any more than he could end his own, aware that he feels hope as he has not felt it in what feels far longer a time than it is. He is aware too of an almost painful delight in seeing Loki alive and of a childish desire to crush him close and let him never stray too far again.

He is _painfully _aware, as Loki has no doubt intended for him to be, that the last time he spoke those words –

"_Now you see me brother" _he was separated from him by glass, unable to touch him as every sense and nerve ending in his body screamed for him to do. It had been _so _long, so long all of those nerve endings were beginning to feel severed and raw from lack of contact, as though only through their touch could he ever feel like one whole and complete living entity. So it had always been, even when touch, when love had come easily – easily indeed urgently, the feel of skin against skin only fuelling the need for more and closer contact. Every sense, every ounce of being clamouring for _more. _He remembers it all so agonisingly, a wrenching at the heart that never stopped pulling at him.

He knows and can barely believe that even now Loki is playing with him, burrowing sharp nails into his heart and sinking the hooks in. He wants to scream at him but does not know what he would scream, knows only that there has to be some release for this mess of burning feeling tearing away at him and that this time that release really can be achieved.

Loki in turn has waited for this apprehensively and impatiently ever since Thor left thinking him Odin. He had waited through tidal waves of amusement, irritation, anger and hurt, alternately torturing himself for testing Thor like this, his brain screaming over and over _have you not done enough already? _And cursing himself for his weakness in not being able to do him worse damage – _given he has gone to that woman and does not even care about you. _As the days and then weeks had passed he had found himself having to make the illusion more and more obvious so that if not Thor then at least his idiot friends might realise there was something amiss and call him back.

Now he stands, seeing how Thor shakes with rage, staring him down with those eyes like smoking coals, eyes he has been finding it harder to read than he could ever have imagined. Loki stands poised awaiting whatever his brother will throw at him almost eagerly, knowing that whatever it is it will be what he has been waiting for all this time. And so, he is prepared when Thor lunges for him with all the force of a storm and he half leaps half falls into the arms of that storm as they crash like lightening wreaking the sky.

Thor throws himself at Loki unsure of what his intent is but with too much rage inside not to let that intent hurt anything it touches. His superior strength throws Loki to the ground and there is such relief, such intense relief in the act that it is with a strange confused pleasure that he tries to pin Loki into the floor, but as he springs downwards Loki's foot catches him around the leg, throwing him too over onto his back as Loki springs back up like a dancer –

"And to think –" he grins, though Thor can see little amusement in his eyes – "There was a time I had to beg you to fight me."

"That time is done" Thor grunts, also setting himself back on his feet – "As so much is."

He launches himself at Loki again, wishing he did not feel such deep clenching pleasure in wrestling him down, wishing he was not so aware of his brother's body, tight, twisted and arching against him – _would that I could tear you open to find your heart _– using his weight to press Loki into the floor and yes, feeling that frantic heartbeat so close to his own; it is the beat that keeps his own heart alive, even if that must needs mean alive and hurting. He has set his whole life to the beat of Loki's heart, for that at least he can still trust. He lets go as much pain as he can in slamming Loki down again by the shoulders, mindlessly pounding him into the ground with his fists. But each blow might as well be to his own flesh and he stops only when _he _cannot take another blow. Loki is still laughing as Thor stares down at him, brokenly, his hands shaking in their fists, a mess of fury, guilt and a rising sense of nausea – for what exactly has been done to his brother that this does not even hurt him? He sags, watching his hands uncurl, appalled, and only then does Loki drop his smile to glare at him furiously,

"What?" he spits, savagely, his words more aggressive than the fight he put up – "Not as _good_ as you thought you were _brother? _Not such a damned paragon after all? Or are you just too scared of your own erection?"

Thor growls at him, but only because he cannot growl at himself; what _stupid _part of him had imagined or even hoped that Loki would not notice that? Or that when he did he would be good enough not to mention it – he knows Loki better than that – it is himself he realises he struggles with. Yes he has been hard for his brother since he launched himself at him, but it should hardly have even surprised him, he has wanted Loki since he was old enough to know what wanting was. Loki smirks, humourlessly, to watch all this cross Thor's face.

"Didn't I tell you, you only ever pretended to care? You want to hurt me as much as anyone ever has, more than most I am sure – _do it _Thor, _hit me, hurt me _damn you, give in and_ fuck_ me like we both know you want to, why pretend when you're so bad a liar? Come on _brother –"_

Thor clenches his fists until the knuckles stand white as bone and Loki chuckles cruelly to see the effort it takes not to hit him to shut him up. Thor balances on that edge until his jaw aches from clenching and with a wrench he dashes his fist into the cold solid ground just beside his brother's head, knuckles and stone both cracking.

"Damn you I will not give in to you again! He snarls furiously – "Just what you want – always, Loki, exactly as you want it – well I will not do you hear? Now –" It is with an effort in the face of Loki so close to pull his mind back to what perhaps should have been his first concern – "Where is _my _father? What have you done?"

Loki shrugs, despite the awkward angle, even though Thor's emphasis on the pronoun hurts more than he thought it could, but he shrugs as though he could not have heard of a more minor concern –

"He's asleep"

"_Loki –" _Thor growls warningly.

"_What? _Would it surprise you to find he was grieved to hear me dead? Would it surprise you that _someone _at least was? That coming so soon after –" Loki swallows hard – "That it was too much and he fell into one of his wretchedly ill-timed escape sleeps? And that I have merely been doing the best I could since then? Is it so impossible or would you expect only that I – I _faked_ my own death to kill him? Is that what you thought?"

"Well what cause had I to believe otherwise?" Thor almost softens, feeling a mess of guilt that it had _not _occurred to him that Loki had not come this way by foul play and uncertain as to whether he was lying yet. Then he remembers his other major grief and hardens again –

"You died on me Loki, you died on me again and did not even tell me you were back, you left me for weeks thinking you dead, so tell me –" his voice rises as he speaks until he is close enough to shouting by the end – "Tell me what I was _supposed _to believe!"

Only Thor shouting so close in his face could jolt Loki into betraying himself, screaming back, face contorted –

"_You were supposed to love me! Damn you Odin's Son you were supposed to love me like you swore you always would, not run to your mortal bitch first chance you got! You were supposed –" _the silver tongue tarnished, Loki struggles to find words through the tears that slip over his lips and he manages only in a jagged breath – _"You were supposed to love me and – and expect better of me."_

"And did you ever expect it of yourself?" Thor aches out every word in sadness – "Did nothing I ever said convince you I had not given up? Did you only notice when I started to tell myself that I had at last? Yes –" he sighs, head hanging until his hair falls in Loki's face – "Yes of course you did. How much do _you_ expect of _me _that you say I felt so little? _Damn you _Loki, how much further can you tear my heart apart?"

Loki stares up at him, a tremble almost waiting at the edge of his lips, everything in him fighting to process this –

"I had not known it existed to break" he whispers half-heartedly.

"_Loki –" _Thor chokes out, and this time he allows the tears to fall on Loki's face – "How dare you?" he wants to shout it but it comes out as a sob – "Loki I could love you into as many pieces as you have torn me and you would still not believe me. Yet I have only ever lied to myself. I – I have always loved you, you little bastard – and I always will –"

Loki stares at him through streaming eyes, half comprehending, half still completely not hearing and it is this half that answers in a shaky –

"W-what?" the stammer of disbelief shuddering against Thor's heart, one hand twisting into his hair, feeling that sweet softness like feathers, the other hand softening as he holds Loki down, stroking his neck almost but not quite absently.

"I love you my brother" he says softly, his tongue trembling on expansion – _my life, my love, other half of my soul, my everything. _But Loki's face is already falling apart as he mouths the words Thor has already given him, unable to say it but forced to believe it – _my brother. Finally_, he thinks, and then; _how does it feel, getting what you wanted? _He mocks himself but cannot stand beneath his own judgement and collapses into tears.

His tears are Thor's undoing, they always have been, especially as now when they fall without the least hint of manipulation or intent. He rolls off of Loki quickly and sitting beside him pulls him into his arms to cry on his shoulder in an almost blissful flood.

"I didn't mean to Thor I didn't mean to I'm sorry, I'm so sorry –" Loki sobs incoherently, all vestige of the King wiped away at this moment until only the boy is left. Thor pats him and tries to make sense of his babble –

"Didn't mean what Loki? It's alright little brother, it's alright now, I've got you –"

"I didn't mean to break you –" Loki sniffs and shakes his head to clear it a little – "I – I didn't think I could – I –" he sounds so bewildered, like a child apologising for breaking a glass he had not seen was there. – "You won't go again so soon? You can go – if you want – the – the human."

"Hush Loki, hush" Thor sighs and rocks him gently – "It's done, she's a friend and that's all, it was all it ever was –" Loki looks at him a little disbelievingly, Thor shrugs apologetically – "I just did not know that at first. You Loki – it's-" he searches for a better sounding answer to every question in his head but really it is as simple as he says – "It's only ever been you."

Loki looks up at him, eyes shining, dazzling green through his tears, shining with hope –

"I can – that is, you'll let me – you'll stay?" he amends – "And I can fix you?" Thor smiles and his heart swells, it feels like almost any minute now it could start to beat again after long hiatus –

"Yes Loki" he smiles – "Yes, you can".

_x_

**Phew, about three times during that the direction it was going in changed from what I was planning, damn the rollercoaster ride of Loki's feels. I thought there would be porn but no….that's gonna be the prerogative of the next chapter! **


	6. Chapter 6

**Possible trigger warnings for this section; there is sex but Loki is still very damaged, experiencing flashbacks (though this is only referred to briefly and not made clear at this time) and in denial, so it could be viewed as dub con, only I'm not sure from who's side. It all gets a bit complex with the feels. **

**6.**

The king clutches at his brother like a broken child on the floor, so small in his arms and the both of them so small in this lonely hall and Thor rocks his brother as though to put him to sleep until his sobs cease and his heart soothes itself just a little. Loki's hitching breathes carry Thor's heart, forcing him to ride on that nightmare rollercoaster of up and down emotion. For a moment Thor feels he can feel all that Loki does and in that feeling he hates himself for not having tried harder always to help.

_I have not done enough. _He beats himself with it over and over. _I never have. Will I ever be able to do enough? Do I have enough to give? Must I always fall short? _And Loki cries hot tears of regret where he felt he had no more tears left to shed;

_I thought I did for I had no more to shed for myself. I drowned in the sea of my own self pity. But it seems I do have tears left still to weep for you, my brother, whom I have wronged. _

The words _forgive me _tremble at the edge of lips unaccustomed to speaking truths and demanding what they really want and even need, but they do not fall. It occurs to Loki that the words will no sooner be out of his mouth before Thor has given him that forgiveness a hundred times over without question and so, because he needs it more than he can say, he does not ask. He looks up at Thor through eyes that shine, bright and green and lost and instead, because it is the closest he can do his forehead knits and he whispers –

"Kiss me" instead. It is more of a plea than he wanted it to be and somehow, looking down into those eyes that he fathoms better than he thought he could Thor knows what it is that his brother is asking. He has always been able to read Loki better than he knows himself, certainly better than Loki will ever know. However many times he has said those words _I know you better than you think _– and he has said them often over the centuries he has not come close to the truth of how well indeed he does. Loki is a part of him, half of his own heart beat and to not know a little of how that worked would be for the heart to stop beating altogether.

Loki knows this too, or knows something like it. That his heart would cease to beat without Thor and that it is only his persistent belief in his own unworthiness and thus a belief that he did _not _have Thor that has placed such a stammer on his heart and broken all the rhythms inside of him until he had long lost the ability to dance to the tune of his own life. He should have known, he should have known his life was not his own – but not in the way he always thought – so laid out, his fate always decided always controlled by others. It was not that he was a pawn in someone's game that made his life belong to others it was that he shared it so closely, with this, his other half. This, and only this.

It _terrifies _him; frightens him more than he could ever express, to know that Thor is always there, that their lives have always been so closely entwined, that all of that goodness that he sees in Thor is in him too by connection. _Could _it? Really? The concept of any goodness of his own makes him doubt even his own reality even if that goodness does come at second hand.

And so, better just for now not to think, better to say softly, fiercely and yes _desperately -_"Kiss me" and hope that one order can be fulfilled. Better to lose this fractured, divided self inside another and in touch erase the confusion and wrong.

Thor sees it. He knows what Loki means, what he needs and so – he kisses him, wiping away his tears with one hand and circling his throat tenderly, possessively with the other. He kisses him deeply, searchingly, to find Loki for himself and lose his own self trying. And Loki kisses back, twisting and pressing against him wildly, hungrily, so much to erase, so much to forget, to not think of, and his heart sings in pleasure that smarts alongside the scars in there and it's not enough, it's dreadfully, agonisingly not enough. His fingers scrabble across Thor's back and over his chest, trying to touch everywhere, to rip the fabric apart, to get into Thor's skin like trying to get out of a cage.

"_More –" _he hisses – "More –" he whimpers and though he does not say _please _Thor can hear him all but scream it. Loki's hands rub furiously against his cock through his clothes and he can feel the near distress his need is causing him. There is a furious burst of energy as Loki squeezes his eyes tight shut ripping both of their clothes away into nothing – a nest of torn fragments around them on the stone and he sighs, quivering and breathless at the feel of Thor's skin against his own, pressing, rubbing, straining almost as if to burst against his chest.

Thor is no less affected by Loki's body against his in lust once more after all this time. All of these months – no, in truth it has been years since last time. It seems several lifetimes ago – before the day of his would – be coronation, before everything he knew, everything they had fell apart, blowing into dust. Before _Loki _had fallen apart so completely, breaking so hard that the pieces hit and hurt everything and everyone they touched. He wonders if this, _this _finally can start to put those pieces back together as he has wanted to ever since then. But he forces himself to take firm hold of Loki's wrists, putting him at arms distance as much as he can for his brother's squirming and gasping like a drowning fish.

"Loki –" he forces himself to speak calmly – "Loki stop – it is not –"

"Right?" Loki snarls, half crying out with the need and effort to kiss at Thor's neck – "It's never been right. But that does not mean it is not good."

"Loki! Listen to me – I will not – use you like this, I will not take advantage –"

"Of me?" Loki barks a short laugh – "If there is advantage to be taken surely I would say it was the reverse and trust me I have no such qualms."

"Loki you are –" Thor struggles, remembering everything that he finally learnt Loki had been through, not _wanting _to remind him, certainly not wanting to force him to think of it, but certainly wondering if he really wants what he wants. He does not want to say _broken, _does not want to say _hurting, _not even _confused, unsure, damaged, _true though he feels they all perhaps are. And so he lets the sentence hang, foolishly giving Loki the opportunity to finish it himself –

"_Broken?" _he sneers, as though he has read Thor's mind – "Well yes, very probably. But for gods sake –" he stills his squirming and looks Thor in the eye as seriously as he has ever managed – "Do not tell me. Do not remind me of the fact by treating me as such. Please Thor. Do not treat me as fragile and so remind me that I am. Do not be gentle. Do not even acknowledge that these words have passed between us – _please?"_

Thor half smiles –

"What words?" he half shrugs – "But Loki, when I kissed you before it was enough to make you –"

"_Shhh" _Loki hisses emphatically, placing a finger to Thor's lips – "Shhh shh shh brother, that will not happen again. Please, undo everything I remembered then by touching me now? And please forget I ever may have said there was anything to undo alright? Because I have, I _have –" _

This time it is Thor who tells him to hush, and falls to kiss him again, unwilling to have taken Loki as he wanted _because _he wanted it but convinced enough that Loki needed it to give in to his own desire, kissing him with shaking lips and trembling hands. If he could have stopped kissing him for half a second it would have been to cry out with the sweet relief of feeling this deliciousness again after so long. His hands roam Loki's body wildly, too needy, too starved for him to take his time as he might otherwise have liked and Loki in turn drags and scratches at his skin in the need to get closer.

The mutual need is frantic, frenzied and demanding and Thor does not need telling to push Loki gently down – Loki all but falling beneath his hands in readiness, screaming aloud when Thor touches his aching cock before sliding a finger inside him, then another, his need too violent, too overwhelming now to allow for much preparation. Loki bites his lip hard, silently blessing Thor for doing as he asked and not being any more gentle, as Thor scissors him apart and rubs spit into his cock as the only lubricant available. It hurts, but Loki moans in delight at the same time as with pain, needing it to hurt, nodding frantically at Thor in affirmation when Thor meets his eye in a silent question. Thor cannot think too deeply now, now is not a time for thinking, but takes the affirmative with all he has and drives his cock hard home into his brother with a screaming groan of sweet ecstasy.

Loki's nails dig into Thor's back hard enough to cut and he bites at his shoulder to keep from screaming – just for a moment before letting go _to _scream, delighting in the temporary insanity of this loss of control. He could not have let it go for anyone else. Thor slams into him with animal intensity, almost more brutally than Loki can take, though he knows now that there is no such thing. He fucks him like they both need, hard and savage, leaving no room for any rational thought and Loki screams inwardly as outwardly for delight in it. It is so good to let go of thought, to know nothing but the feel of his brother against him, inside him, owning him and fucking him like it will break him so hard he will find himself fixed. Thor's hands are like magic on his skin, Loki can almost _see _that magic, painting him with a golden light that removes any traces of any Other's touch. As though the foulness had been painted black upon his skin and Thor's hands erase it all, painting him as new again. He pictures it so clearly that he starts to cry, wonderful ecstatic tears that make him laugh at the same time and wrap his arms around Thor to hold him to the world as so much badness seeps out of his skin. Thor sees his tears and looks a question at him, Loki shakes his head and pulls him close to kiss, adamant that Thor does not stop. Thor is not honestly sure that he could, and at the sweetness of Loki's kiss and the sublime clench of his body, thrusts into him one last time before coming cataclysmically, breaking off the kiss to roar his ecstasy to the vaulted ceiling. Loki gasps to take in all the breath he can and screams to feel the darkness within him replaced by the hot rush of his brother's seed. His screams are as raw, as animal as Thor's and he quietens only when he has no further breath left and his throat feels ragged.

Loki's fingers play loosely in Thor's hair, now slightly damp with sweat and he rolls onto his side, pushing Thor likewise, still in his arms. Thor presses a kiss to the top of his head;

"Brother" he whispers, a faint smile on his lips, the one word containing everything Loki needs to hear. He nuzzles closer in against Thor's chest and it's almost, just for a moment it could be – as though none of the past two years had happened and they are innocent again. Thor opens his mouth to say something – he is not sure what, but Loki feels the move and shakes his head –

"No –" he mumbles, muffled, "Don't. Cold. Shh."

Thor watches as their fragments of clothes dance and swirl into one big cloak in a mess of spiralling red and green which Loki then pulls around them both and they press close beneath it. They curl silent and close in the roughly made cave where they can pretend that the world has gone away. It always was their favourite game.

_x_

**This maybe went a bit more traumatic than I meant it to, I'm sorry. The next chapter I think will be quite a short one, then it's the end of part one. I see this story as coming in two sections but I'm probably posting it all as the same story so there's a way to go yet!**


	7. Chapter 7

**6.**

It is dark beneath the cloak, dark and warm and more comfortable than it probably should be. They lie for an age in the dark and the quiet, listening to the beating of their hearts, trying and failing to keep track of whose is whose. Like it always was, this dark and quiet; so close to what it always was. It is almost, but not quite, possible to forget – but there is too much to forget. Thor blinks repeatedly, trying to see better in the dark, to make out Loki's face at all, but he can't. It troubles him that he has no idea of the expression on his face and be begins to speak just to hear the tone of Loki's voice.

"_No –" _Loki cuts in emphatically, before Thor has even finished saying his name, and his tone answers all that Thor had been wondering – "_Don't. _Please don't. I don't want – let's just stay like this –"

Thor feels Loki's hands begin to twist and rub in consternation and his body tense a little in his arms, hears his voice take on a note of weary sadness. He strokes the soft back of Loki's neck very gently with just two fingers until he feels him relax a little again, softening back into his arms.

"But there is so much to say" he sighs, not wanting it to be true either, just feeling that someone ought to say it – "So much that has happened –"

"_No!" _Loki repeats, stubbornly – "There is _nothing _to say, and _nothing _has occurred. Please Thor – can't we just pretend that, just for now? Please?"

This time Thor does not need to be able to see to know that Loki is looking up at him with big pleading eyes, eyes that he would not be able to resist if it was not so dark.

"But we need to – that is –" he realises he does not even know really where to start – "I need to be able to talk to father – tell him –" he frowns, realising – "That was _you – _I never really told _him_ all you did. If I do –"

"And I _told _you I didn't do it for him. Anyway you can't, he's safe in his wretched sleep and I have watched this realm well enough in the absence of you both."

"We can tell him that too!" Thor cannot help but feel eager hope at the prospect – "Once he hears all you have done you can be – well, you know I do not desire the throne –"

"Would you give it to me only to leave me again?" Loki scowls, bitterly – "Would you run straight back to _her? _Gods! - I told you I didn't want to – there is no way this talk or any plan can go well."

"And I told you I was not going back, I shall visit Midgard yes, but not to stay – Loki – all I want is to be here, to rule beside you if you will have it – all I ever wanted was to be your equal."

Loki makes a small unintelligible sound and when he rubs his face into Thor's shoulder Thor can feel the wetness of his eyes. Loki mumbles something he does not catch and Thor gently asks him to repeat it. Loki looks up and his brother feels his chest heave in a deep deep sigh –

"I said I should be me saying that to you."

"And so it was. But that does not make my sentiment any truer."

"Feh –" sneers Loki, almost affectionately – "Sentiment. Please Thor, for the love of all the realms shut up."

He stops Thor's attempts at reply with a firm kiss that turns swiftly more intense than he initially meant it to. His hands clasp, indeed almost cling about Thor's shoulders and they both realise quite suddenly that there is a depth of need here still to be satisfied. Thor kisses back needily for a while, never ceasing to be amazed at how electric those twisted lips feel against his own, half frightened at the strength of his hunger for his little brother's touch. He only breaks away, panting for breath when tired of desperately tracing the contours of Loki's face with his fingers –

"Please Loki –" he groans – "My beautiful brother – I need to see you, make your magic."

Loki rolls his eyes into the darkness –

"What are you still twelve? You do know how I can use that magic now and that it's no longer just put to the employ of lighting our caves in the bed sheets don't you?" but Thor hears the amusement in Loki's voice and growls his name softly as Loki sighs, shaking his head tolerantly and paints the sides of their cloak in a starry sky of tiny coloured lights, the same that intrigued Thor since he was a child, filling him with wonderment and Loki smiles to see those lights reflected in his eyes sparkling in deep reflections of blue, gold, green and red. Thor in turn watches the light play across Loki's skin like scattered fragments of dark rainbow and he traces the dance of lights with his fingers. For him Loki will always shine this way. Loki gazes back at the lights caught in Thor's hair as though watching them from far away, window lights from across a darkened bay. He runs his fingers through that hair, scattering the lights and wondering that there is still a part of himself left that can use this magic so innocently. He wonders if there is hope for him yet and it scares him so much he has to rut against Thor furiously to lose the idea in pure sweet not – thinking.

Each touch becomes so rapidly, so unexpectedly frenzied, soon neither is aware of his own limbs, of what those limbs were doing, before there is time to even think of what they were doing and of whose were whose they twisted so tightly together. There is so much to mend, so much to make up for and in the absence of words they fight to fix those rendered selves together in flesh.

"There is so much still to say" Thor groans, hours later, rolling away from Loki, too hot and sweat–drenched to still touch. Loki's hand seeks his feverishly against the cool stone floor, clasping onto it as though Thor has moved too far away to bear.

"There is so much still to do." He returns.

It is a strange day for the silver tongue to turn to silence but Thor respects it for now and clasps Loki's warm, urgently seeking hand, drawing his brother to him once more in spite of the sticky heat of their skin. It is not enough, it feels now like no amount of re-joining will ever be enough. But it is a start.

_x_

**End of Part 1! **

**Part 2 is still gonna be published here though since it's all the same story, so I guess that's not the most relevant announcement ever, but still, this feels like an end of part 1!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Part 2.**

**This is set a few days later, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this! **

**1.**

Quiet in a sea of noise. It has all become background now, so much so until all of these people and their actions have become nothing but a play to which he has long since ceased to pay attention, and he just a character in this drama – a dull player too, that has forgotten his lines or where this plot was meant to go.

Indeed he struggles to see himself, as he once was, even as he is now, sat thus, a stranger at the feast. Time was he was the principal player, the life and soul of the party; he feels now a poor ghost of that former self, that raucous, bellowing creature he cannot see a glimpse of in this, the last in a long line of tedious feasts. He can hear the echo of his old laugh and it sounds like it was ever hollow, always a little too loud, making up for the fact that none of these people really amused him.

So many feasts of late, or does it just seem that way for how they drag? To celebrate the All-father's safe return – though nobody had really known he was gone in the first place, much as they knew something was amiss. Then there was Loki's tentative welcome back to Asgard, this time without the chains, and now some faint, tenacious pretence that things were back to normal, while the question of succession hung more dubiously and imminently than it had done before.

Thor wonders when he began, in all of this, to feel substantial, how he has managed to lose sight of himself s badly. He watches Loki from across the room with eyes like a hawk. In these last few days he has become afraid to even let him out of his sight, so slippery is his grasp upon what they have regained that he cannot trust for a second he will not lose it all again.

_And I cannot, _he thinks, _I cannot lose you again, not now, not ever. This _he realises, _this is where I lost sight of myself, when all I became able to see was you. I have kept track of you better than I have of myself. You are my serenity, my smile restored to me and yet now, with you possessing neither of these qualities how do I regain them even for myself? _

Loki feels Thor's eyes on him and looks up, from where he leans against the wall, gazing down at the floor and Thor sees his shoulders heave as he sighs. They have not talked much and that awkwardly since that first day, upon emerging from the cave they had made for themselves. Without that soft darkness to hide them they had struggled to make eye contact or even speak too deeply. Loki looks up once more and in that cautious glance Thor thinks he sees an invitation to follow as he slips between the pillars and through one of the side doors of the banquet hall unseen. Thor makes his murmurs to those around him and follows.

Loki does not stop in the room he slipped into but waits until he knows Thor is following to go into the next, one of the smaller libraries, dimly lit and deliciously silent. He sinks into the corner of an alcove, curling into himself on the side of one of the benches fitted in here and leaning his face against the cool wood of a bookcase. Even with him curled up so small Thor still finds he can only just fit himself onto the rest of the bench.

"These gatherings never were your thing" he states, flatly, looking at his hands, clasped in front of him. Loki looks at him, pensively.

"They _were _yours" he counters – "What happened?"

Thor looks back, briefly and gives a short, humourless laugh. Loki looks away at that and his lips part in a tiny bitter, just as humourless chuckle, his fingers curling around the pear he was holding in his hand as though it was a magical artefact. He looks down, unsure what he was really doing with it, possibly making some pretence of eating at some point. Thor follows his eyes and is taken back to another time, another place, another him.

"Do you remember –" he begins. Loki looks up again sharply and shakes his head close to pleadingly –

"_Don't" _he groans, a soft plea as his insides tremble – "For the god's sake, don't –" his lip trembles and Thor feels a groan low down struggle to come out of him, a need to just kiss it better. It's all he has wanted to do, make it better, but he fears he is too clumsy for anything he says not to make it worse instead.

"What happens n –" he begins, but Loki sighs again –

"No" he says – "Not that either – I –" his eyes prick and he snarls softly at the feeling – "I can't Thor. I can't do what _was. _I can't do what _will be. _For gods sake I'm working with _is _right now."

"Then tell me" Thor almost pleads – "Tell me what it is that's so hard and let me help."

"It's me" Loki sighs, shrugging feebly, and he wants to stop there, to make it all just him, but like it or not Thor _has _helped already and he cannot blame or hate himself quite as desperately as he would like – "It's you" he adds – "It's everyone. Thor, they behave like they're giving me a chance but I can see it in everyone's eyes – they're just waiting for me to go wrong again. _I'm _just waiting for me to go wrong again. You don't trust me, I know that, but _I _trust me even less – I'm scared –" he says this very quietly, not wanting to hear his own confession – "I'm scared of what I'll do next, and I'm scared –" he actively bites his tongue and looks down again, a faraway look in his eyes and Thor can feel him tremble beside him, looking so small he could take him entirely into his arms like a child.

"Come here" he growls, warmly but allowing for no argument, and Loki puts up none, which suggests at least to Thor that he _has _come further than he thinks, even though he knows it feels worse to Loki than when he would not allow himself to be comforted. But he shuffles over in the seat to put his head on Thor's shoulder, allowing Thor to hold him gently, almost rocking him until the shaking first gets worse and then subsides.

"I'm scared" he continues, when it is possible to do so – "That you'll forgive me again. That you'll keep on forgiving me until there's nothing left –"

"Nothing of you, you mean?"

"No" Loki groans in grinding exasperation and dread of the truth that he might be actually putting Thor before himself in his own priorities. It does not seem likely, but he fears he is all the same – "Nothing of _you_" he explains – "I'm – afraid – afraid you'll waste yourself in keeping an eye on me and lose sight of yourself in the process. I'm afraid you'll break from tiredness for watching over me while I sleep – oh I _know _you do. I'm afraid you'll tell me something sentimental and I'll believe it. I – I don't want to be the one to break your heart."

Thor shakes his head –

"But you're the only one who ever could –" Loki looks up at him, face scrunched, eyes full – "Because you are the only one who has ever had it."

Loki leans his head back as far as it will go and sticks out his tongue making a gagging sound of disgust, but when he speaks again it is with a genuine smile playing about his lips –

"Brother please, that's disgusting."

"Well I love you"

"Yeeash!" Loki grins now and rolls his eyes and just for a moment it is as it is in Thor's best imaginings and they are as they always were before anything came to complicate them. He smiles though, truly and feels a lightening of the heart that only Loki can grant him –

"Well I do!" he grins, partly because it is true, but mostly to annoy Loki further – "I love you more than anything in all of the realms –" he continues in this vein whilst Loki scowls and flounces and stuffs his fingers in his ears and starts singing. And they both know that while he is making it sound like a lie Thor means it and while he is making it sound like true distaste Loki is accepting it, and really, Thor thinks, they are so much less different in this than he ever imagined they could be.

"Are you done?" Loki grins, taking his fingers out of his ears with mocking tentativeness. Thor smiles and strokes the side of his brother's face tenderly –

"Never"

Loki rolls his eyes and turns his face, nuzzling into Thor's palm at the same time, Thor exhales slowly, closing his eyes at the softness of Loki's skin, the intense pleasure of touching him again after too many days spent dancing around each other.

"Focussing on the present then –" he begins and Loki nods a hushed affirmative, Thor grins faintly, that ghost of his old self settling back into his skin – "Why not make the present as good as it can be?"

Loki shakes his head in mock despair –

"Really brother? Is that the best line you've got?"

"I don't need lines for you, I never have"

"Thor?" Loki whispers, leaning in and pressing his forehead against Thor's, the arch of his body towards him needy and almost shy.

"Hmm?"

"Love me?"

"Always."

Thor strokes Loki's hair, and standing, pulls him with him, swinging him up into his arms as though he weighed nothing, indeed the weight is next to nothing to Thor, less than he ever remembers, and it frightens him a little, as though Loki really has been slipping away. Loki laughs softly at being carried like a bride and beats at Thor's arm feebly with no real intent –

"Put me down!"

"Never. Loki you're tiny, you should eat more."

"I don't think now is the time –"

"Later then"

Loki groans, almost happily and curls into Thor's chest as he is carried carefully out.

_x_

**Next chapter won't take me as long as this one to get done I promise….also it will be all full of the sex. :-) **


	9. Chapter 9

**Mostly sex. Usual warnings regarding this fic apply. :-)**

**2.**

Thor lays Loki down on his bed so gently Loki looks up at him nervously, almost frightened. They are no longer shielded by the shadows like last time, the room is warm and golden and there is nothing they cannot see. It frightens Loki, knowing that Thor intends to make his feelings perfectly clear and knowing that he will not hide his own even with the parts of him that want to. He knows it for when Thor bends over to kiss him he leans towards him with open arms and his lips tingle beneath his brothers, painfully and deliriously needing the kiss. He does not want to take the time, or fumble in a divesting of clothing he knows will only make him awkward and so passes a hand across the both of them without touching that renders them both instantly naked, vestments falling around them like a flurry of autumn leaves.

Thor has a fleeting look of disappointment at how quickly the deed was done and Loki feels a deep terrible pang of inadequacy, hating himself for his own uncertainty, for the memories that will not wholly leave him. Memories that laugh at him, telling him this will not go well, that this will hurt him, that he deserves to be hurt and should expect nothing less. He is not sure what scares him more – that Thor will hurt him or that he will not. Last time went too fast for him to think too much and he half wishes it could be the same again; but the other half is stronger, the braver half, that knows this must be done. He bites his lip hard, hating himself for being so weak, for letting something good be sullied by such stupid things having happened to him.

"I'm –" he starts to say, but Thor brushes a hand across his mouth refusing to let him say sorry for this, realising suddenly what has been going through Loki's head and pausing to drop and lie beside him, guiding Loki round until they are lying facing each other.

"Loki" he murmurs, so sweetly, almost reverently that Loki hangs his head in shame in response. Thor frowns and takes Loki's face in his hand, forcing him to look up though is stabs at his heart to see those shimmering eyes so afraid and unsure – "My Loki, my beautiful little brother, you do not look down to me, nor to anyone, dear one."

"Oh Thor –" Loki sighs – "I do not –"

"Shh" Thor silences him, knowing anything he says will not be true and will be hideously unfair upon himself – "I'm not going to hurt you Loki, I would never hurt you –" Loki frowns at him – "Unless you wanted me to" Thor adds – "And we do not have to do anything you do not want –" Loki shakes his head –

"I _want" _he insists, and pleased to see Thor give a sigh of relief at that, he smiles – "And I'm not breakable, trust me." Thor smiles;

"This time I will then". He kisses Loki until his lips are sore and he does not care, holding him close but so that when his hands fall to exploring the once familiar territory of Loki's body his eyes can follow. Those eyes prick to see the changes wrought into the once flawless skin. He remembers a time when he felt his touch was the only thing that stained that pale perfection. But now that same skin is a landscape of silvery scars and his hands as they travel Loki's back feel the soft tender skin amongst a meshwork of knotted scar tissue. His fingers tremble and he buries his face in Loki's chest that he may not see the tears that spring to his eyes, tears of loss and anger. Anger at those who did this and anger at himself for not having known or been able to prevent it. He rains desperate kisses across his brother's chest and shoulders, aching to kiss away every scar and render it gone and Loki feels the damp upon his skin and does not apologise this time.

Thor's fingers trace the mesh and wish for the magic to erase it all, but sorrow does not lessen his longing, if anything he needs Loki now more than ever.

"If I could only –" he begins, but Loki shakes his head at him;

"Don't" he says again – "Just do what can be done."

"I love you Loki"

Loki blinks at him, unable to hide from that intent honest gaze, or hide the fear it injects into his eyes.

"I love you" Thor repeats, not giving Loki the chance to deny it or argue, scream or cry, knowing it is more than difficult for him to hear but not about to let him off just on account of the difficulty. Loki shakes his head, in earnest this time as his heart battles disbelief and feels the bruises of it –

"Please stop"

Thor frowns wondering if he is referring to his saying it or his doing it, either way, he shakes his head in gentle dismissal –

"Never"

He feels Loki's fingers tense, claw like where those hands are clasped around his back and feeling the tension spread throughout the little body beneath him he tenses in return prepared for Loki to hiss and spit and fight him off for this. He watches the struggle, like a sky clouding and clearing across his face and smiles himself when the clouds part and he can _feel _Loki first forcing himself to relax and then, as Thor strokes his hip with infinite gentleness, relax for real. He kisses the hot forehead and gently strokes the cock that has stayed hard in spite of the surging panic and his heart sings to know that it means more than just that Loki is continuing to offer him his body but that he is doing so in the tentative acceptance of this terrifying awareness that Thor will not let him avoid.

He does not push this acceptance with further words, aware that this is enough, indeed more than he could have hoped to ask and besides the demands of his body are now far too strong to ignore. Loki moans in several different shades of relief as Thor presses his cock against his thigh, trickling oil over his fingers and pushing Loki's legs up firmly to give him access. He hisses in an almost surprised shudder of pleasure to feel the first finger play gently at his opening, the hiss spreading into a groan of delight as Thor slides the finger inside, followed by another, scissoring him open so gently he is almost ready to cry, both from the tenderness and with impatience. He glares up at Thor with eyes that brim and beg him not to make him say please. Thor grins, he knows that look of old and knows what it means, he takes his time intentionally, even if it is just as frustrating to himself, it is worth it to hear Loki say please.

"Bastard" Loki hisses, as though the words have actually passed between them in more than just the eyes – "I won't. I won't beg."

"You will" Thor growls, smugly, but also simply factually – "You will, for me, brother, I know you."

Loki clamps his lips firmly together, but even that resolution is broken when Thor kisses him again and his spare hand squeezes at his cock, torturing him, willing him to break like he knows Loki want, _needs _to break. Loki shakes his head and makes a stubborn noise of denial until Thor begins teasing him with the head of his cock and Loki's eyes start to stream stubborn tears of wanting.

"_Please_" he whispers, lips curling in an angry sneer around the barely audible whisper. Thor grins.

"Please _what _little brother?"

Loki's hands flail uselessly, grasping at air and then sinking his nails into the muscles of Thor's back and hissing in his ear –

"_Please fuck me, Thor, fuck your little brother" _

It is more than Thor needs and he thrusts in completely, sinking deep into Loki as they both scream with the intense delight of it.

"Good" Thor grits out – "Good Loki, good".

All objection to being called good flies at being filled with Thor's cock and Loki clings to him, screaming, letting himself be fucked, letting himself be _good, _letting himself love every thrust, every touch every second. He does not even realise he is crying until he wonders why Thor's shoulder is wet and his body arches and shimmers with the pleasure of letting go _like this, _Thor holding him in those arms he could never be taken from, that nobody could fight and win, holding him as though they are still as young and curiously innocent in their lust as they once were and at the same time stroking him to soothe what feels like a millennia of aches.

"My Loki" Thor whispers gently, while the sweat drips from his forehead and he rams into him with savage wild need and it is the whisper that has Loki coming with tears streaming from his eyes but falling back down into the sheets smiling, head humming, body shaking divinely as Thor pours his hot seed into him, growling his ecstasy into Loki's hair.

He falls onto his back and when he opens his eyes moments later it is to find Loki now leaning over him, his face reflective, possible melancholic as he studies the changes now in Thor's body, his fingers tracing scars that were not there before. He watches Loki's eyes flutter in consternation as he gently strokes a deep short scar just above his hip. He bites his lip and lowers his eyes –

"I'd like to kill the person who did that to you" he murmurs. Thor frowns and replies gently –

"Loki _you _did that to me."

Loki raises his head and there is a sharp sparking look in his eyes –

"I know" he says.

Thor meets his sorrowful gaze and the memory passes between them –

_"Sentiment" Loki whispers, tears in his eyes, starting to streak down his face as he plunges the dagger into Thor's side and Thor does not even feel the dagger his screams so in agony to have Loki turned against him like this and still to see the tragedy etched into his face, and he falls –_

"Loki" he murmurs now, pulling Loki gently back up the bed until his brother's face is buried into his neck in the place at Thor's side where he belongs. Thor strokes his hair and Loki can almost feel the soothing going into his brain – "It's alright Loki, it's done. It's done. That person you'd kill? I won't let you. I won't let you even hurt him. He does not deserve it"

"Does he not?" Loki returns, genuinely seeking an answer. Thor frowns, so much love caught in all the lines that even Loki can see it –

"My Loki" he whispers in reply – "You do not."

Loki does not think he quite believes it, he is not sure he ever will, but he curls into Thor as he always has done and decides that he can take it for now.

_x_

**So I pretty much wrote this whole thing for that one exchange where Loki wants to kill whoever hurt Thor. That exchange was my motivation for what's turned into like 20,000 words! I swear I don't know what's happening to me! There are still I think maybe two chapters of this to go though! :-)**


	10. Chapter 10

**In which Thor deals with Loki's issues. All trigger warnings for this fic apply.**

**3.**

_and it is so dark here so very dark and so very cold with the only warmth coming from sickening bodily fluids trickling over the skin and clammy touch of the creatures all around, by turns sharp and scraping in blunt and bright shades of pain and then the wishing it would come back when the touches become disgusting nauseatingly tender. The smells and the sensations all washing together into a sickly world of filth that invades the brain and poisons it through and through until it would be good to say the body no longer mattered but it does matter because oh dear god, it hurts. Then the loss of all dignity and the simple wailing at the pain and the indignity, the chaotic yet also methodical destruction of the self in an attack from every possible side – fighting sounds petulant, sounds like pleading, curling up silent feels like defeat. There is no answer to this that does not induce complete and utter worthlessness – the kind so complete and utter you come out the other side grandiose and grinning –_

_- and there is nothing to say here, save to sing to yourself in madness, save to babble the inanities of a child in distress, nothing to say or do that does not reduce you to that most pathetic mire ridden infant, nothing but over used pleas that have never been heard by anyone –_

"No – nonono please stop, please it hurts, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

Thor has watched over Loki for almost three hours into the night, first in silence, holding him, stroking him gently, apprehensive but hopeful in the idea that he has him back, remembering so many nights spent watching over his nightmares and calming him back to sleep. This is different though, he knows it, when Loki starts to twitch in his sleep he kisses him and draws him closer, when this seems to make him panic all the more he lets go and when the shivering and the whimpering become frightening he starts to shake him awake and this is the point at which Loki starts screaming, lashing out with every limb and coming damn near close to clawing Thor's eyes out in his struggles.

"Loki!" Thor half whispers, half shouts – "Loki, Loki, Loki – it's alright brother, it's just me, you're home, I won't hurt you Loki, nothing's going to hurt you –"

Loki does not stop struggling, indeed as Thor holds his arms as gently as he can Loki simply strains and squirms more desperately, seemingly terrified, but in his wild searching gaze he finally finds Thor's face and his stricken roving eyes seem to still as the breath rips raggedly out of him. Thor can almost see the light coming back into his eyes from a place that it seemed like light forgot. He can feel Loki's struggles become less frantic though he can still feel the heart beating in his chest like it is trying to jump out of there, every muscle strung like an over tightened instrument. He does not stop stroking him for half a second, murmuring a constant meaningless torrent of comforting sounds and half words.

Gradually Loki's swimming eyes seem to focus on Thor's face and he stares at him a moment as though the truth and awareness of his current surroundings are now only just coming back to him – which they are. In the silence as he blinks Thor can feel Loki scrunching into himself, contracting like a heartbeat and he is almost certain that he is going to burst into tears. When instead Loki starts to laugh he wishes his certainty had been correct. It is a terrible sound, hysterical, hollow and so close to despairing that Thor's eyes ache to see Loki contort with the spasms of laughing so hard and so humourlessly

Loki laughs at the prospect of his own safety, of the concept of nothing hurting him, that seems so preposterous, so ludicrous it has long ceased even to be funny, laughs until his eyes are leaking, stinging and his head pounding like the monsters trapped inside his skull are hammering to get out and when it starts to hurt too much his shaking subsides and laughter ceases, though Thor cannot be relieved by this when the pain so contorts his brother's features and he rubs the heels of his hands furiously against his forehead and ears to try and stop the screaming inside. He cries at at the pain in his head, a terrible keening cry that stabs at Thor's heart until he wishes he could feel some of what Loki is feeling – or all of it if he could – just to take it from him. As Loki twists away from him, he keeps his arms around him and tells him this gently –

"I would take it all if I could, brother I swear."

The hammers do not stop their beating in in his head but Loki ceases his frenzied rubbing to sigh, a scream caught within the sigh as he whispers –

"Yes I suppose you would – but – it is not your due –"

"You deserve it no more than I"

Loki snorts but does not have the energy to argue, instead he gives the fraction of a nod –

"You could almost make me believe it" and though his back is to Thor he pushes back against him, insinuating himself deeper into that comforting embrace. A ghost of that terrible laughter rips itself out of his mouth but this time he stops it fast, the words rushing out –

"It told me that you, more than anyone wanted only to hurt me. That I could not trust you. It said you hated me and wanted me only to use – it said – it said –"

"Loki –" Thor murmurs, stroking the damp hair back out of Loki's eyes – "Everything it said to you was a lie."

Loki nods rapidly, convincing himself of this with every jerk. He gives thanks to the dark and to Thor not trying to make him turn around that he can bear to say what he says next, even though his heart has been shrieking it since their first encounter on Midgard what seems like so many ages ago –

"Thor –" he whispers, in the barest breath, his fingers hooking like little claws into the arm that holds him tight – "help me". He starts to shake again to believe he has actually said it when neither of them ever imagined he would and Thor, who imagined it no more than Loki has to turn his head so that no wetness falls onto his brother's shoulder and betrays his relief.

He makes it sound like a joke but it is unbearably true as he gently, forcing a smile, replies –

"I thought you'd never ask".

Loki almost relaxes and when Thor's fingers run firmly up the side of his face to press at his temples he can almost feel some of the badness seep out of him like a dark stream pouring steadily out of his ears. Thor rubs circles, fingertips digging into Loki's head so perfectly they seem to go straight into his brain like warm gold. Loki remembers the last fingers that wriggled into his brain, violating his mind and injecting him with venom like slithering snakes – this is the antithesis of that horror. This touch could erase that with those steady loving circular strokes. Loki groans in pleasure at the relief, at the removal of so much dark stickiness in the brain and its replacement with that amount of gold. Moisture seeps from his eyes that is not exactly crying. He can barely believe it – that this _is _helping. That it can start with something so simple.

As he feels Loki soften Thor starts gently whispering words in his ear, embroidering a story of truth that he expects Loki at any moment to force him to silence, and certainly Loki tenses at the recollection and the images he re-conjures from their past, but Thor can almost feel him stop himself objecting, making himself remember.

He spins a recollection into Loki's ear and to his mind, weaving together anecdotes that began when they were small, of Loki's tricks and Thor's plans. Of stolen adventures and games. Of the times Loki had crept to his room again and again with his nightmares , first confiding them to Thor, tremblingly and afterwards denying that he had ever been afraid. How Thor had held him through the night and watched over him until he fell asleep.

"I was less different from you than I would have readily believed" he admits – "For I would not have admitted how much I liked having you there any more than you would have admitted being afraid of the dark –"

"I was _not –" _Loki begins, almost for old times sake. Thor chuckles and ignores him, though he knows that Loki still _is _as afraid of the dark as ever.

"All those nightmares you confessed to me then – I never thought so many centuries later I would be watching over you just the same as then."

Loki scowls, thinking about arguing, then flops back into Thor's arms –

"This never happened either" he adds. Thor simply smiles and carries on, knowing that there are some things he will never be able to change and he is not sure he quite wants to. Some things are just so Loki about Loki he could never truly want to make them different. He takes the tale on into their adolescence, re- discovering the first days of their burgeoning desire, those first tentative explorations of one another that rapidly grew into desperate journeys of discovery, re-exploring one another over and over again. He paints the colours of those days into the darkness of the room, golden sunlight and blue skies, snow and starlight, Loki's eyes in the firelight, falling in love with him over and over again, telling one another in a thousand murmured confessions over a couple of hundred years.

"I never told you any such thing" Loki huffs.

"You did" Thor smiles, telling the stories of those rare times, quiet times like these, Loki lying by the fire or in their furs, blissed out and smiling that rare smile that held not a hint of malice or pretence. The tremble in his voice as he whispered those magic words. Loki turns around at this part of the story, trembling now at the memory and at the closeness he feels now to such recollection. The terrifying suggestion in Thor's arms that all this could be regained.

Forehead to forehead, as they have always been when they are not fist to fist they share this sweet dream of a past that may or may not really have happened – at least quite the way that memory paints it. And perhaps memory does paint it in a panoply of shimmering jewel like colours and perhaps that is an exaggeration of the fact. Perhaps after all it is not. Perhaps this past, this state of being that they held then can be restored. It has always been Thor's tragedy that he never stopped believing this, and then for a while it was his tragedy when he did not. For Loki, he has never quite believed in the dream even in the centuries when it was a truth, and this then is his tragedy too. And now? Now Thor is not sure if he is breaking apart or coming back together for the belief seems to be returning and Loki too, he can see it in his eyes, is shaking in silent fear and hope that it could after all be true. He is not sure which scares him more.

Restoring the dream would be a step to restoring that long but never forgotten state, and as Thor rocks his brother back to sleep in the wake of the nightmares it does seem like this time, finally Loki might simply dream again.

_x_

**I think that's this one finished! I'm not totally happy with this ending so there may be more or a sequel at some time but no further plans at this time! For now watch this space for my Roman AU fic starting soon! **

**Thank you for reading! :-) **


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